METAMORPHOSIS INSIDE MULTIPLE CHEMICAL SENSITIVITY

During our lives we suffer several metamorphoses, some are painful, others are positive, chosen or not. The experience, the life itself, makes us change and evolve.

My story is not different, although my most radical metamorphosis was when I fell ill with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. But although I got sick suddenly, the process itself happened slowly. I was preparing for MCS for many years before I was aware of it. My body was warning me repeatedly without my understanding what it wanted to tell me. But how could I know that everything happening to me was the prelude to MCS? It’s almost impossible to know since information about MCS is kept secret from the public and when anyone dares to raise a voice, they are automatically silenced by those who say MCS is all in the minds of the patients.

It’s not easy to understand what happens to you as you search for a diagnosis, all the while trying not to fail during the long journey while you are riddled with attempts to damage your self-esteem as you struggle with a more diminished health status every day. The last stage of this particular metamorphosis happens when you finally know what it is happening: you have MCS. And then you start to reconsider the life you have known before in order to adapt yourself and to survive into the future.

All of us have gone through the stage of crying over things that we have lost, to hate what we have become. Where is that tireless and impulsive person who took the world by storm? It’s a natural, healthy and necessary stage. But oddly, then comes the most difficult thing: to find our place in this new world in which we’re doomed to live.

And surprisingly, when I thought that my life couldn’t be more foreseeable and monotonous, from the prison that my house has become, another metamorphosis started, this time deeper and visceral. This time my metamorphosis was chosen.

The need to communicate, to let the world know that I’m still alive, to cry out for my own rights and the rights of millions of people who suffer MCS in the whole world, led me to write. My timid voice started to be heard on my blog, No Fun, and then gathered strength thanks to Delirio’s articles, which were translated into several languages. And the first of them, “The Naked Truth about MCS,” was read on the Spanish Radio 3 program Carne Cruda. It was then that I finally dared to do something I had never imagined I would ever do: to write a book.

The extremely reserved person that I used to be has disappeared, in order to be able to tell my story to the world, as I dig into the deepest places of my being. Missing: A Life Broken by Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is a fulfilled wish as I report the situation in which we live. It’s my metamorphosis inside the metamorphosis of living with MCS. It’s my testimony, my life, my reflections. It’s also my contribution to the fight we’re doing at an international level to have MCS fully recognized. My book is the clearest proof that MCS didn’t take away my essence or my attitude; MCS didn’t steal my dreams but rather it changed my dreams so that I could help others.

My wish is that a lot of books will be written by people who are “missing” because of MCS so that the public knows we exist. We are ill, but no one will silence us.

Author: Eva Caballé / No Fun Blog, published at Delirio 2010.

Translation: Oscar Varona (from Delirio’s team) and Eva Caballé with help from Susie Collins.

Japanese and German versions are following soon.

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4 Responses to “METAMORPHOSIS INSIDE MULTIPLE CHEMICAL SENSITIVITY”

  1. amy and Lucy 16. February 2010 um 15:38

    Thank You-
    You have helped me reclaim what I have left, and have helped Lucy to use her wings-
    I never felt I could write anything anyone would want to read-
    Nowadays it takes me years to write a single chapter of my journey- I feel I must share in order to help another soul from getting as ill. Bitterness is the only poisen we can control.

    MCS did steal my dreams- Never again!

    No one will silence us-The flock is too big to ignore !

  2. Eva Caballé 16. February 2010 um 20:00

    Thank you for publishing my article at EMM blog. It’s an honour to me.

    Dear Amy and Lucy, I’m very glad that my article has helped you. We must write and share our histories to let people know that we are alive and MCS exists. I could never imagine I would write a book! I encourage you to write your own history. It’s hard but it’s also grateful.
    You can find my book in any bookstore in Spain, and it has reached all kind of public, some of them who didn’t know anything about MCS. Some people have told me that my book have opened their eyes and they realized that we use a lot of toxic products and nobody protects us. And it makes me so happy!
    Please don’t let MCS steals your dreams never again!

  3. Maria Magdalena 23. February 2010 um 00:44

    Dear Eva,

    thank you for your new article about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. While reading it I had tears in my eyes from the very honest and confident thoughts inside.

    I am so glad, that you and other mcs-patients don’t give up and work so hard to win a better life and more rights for all chemical injured people.

    Your article lets me know, that we will win a victory- all together. :-)

    With best wishes,
    Maria Magdalena

  4. Eva Caballé 3. March 2010 um 14:55

    Dear Maria Magdalena,

    Thank you for explaining your feelings about my article. It means a lot to me.
    I’m sure that we will eventually win!

    All the best,
    Eva

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